What Is a Community Transportation Coordinator? How Florida CTCs Hire Local Operators

Florida runs a second public ride system beside Medicaid. It carries people who cannot drive or buy a ride to dialysis, work, school, and the grocery store, and in each county one organization is in charge of it. That organization is the community transportation coordinator, and if it contracts out trips, it is the one who hires your company.

What a community transportation coordinator does

Florida law defines a CTC as a transportation entity recommended by the local metropolitan planning organization, or by a designated official planning agency where there is none, to make sure coordinated rides reach the transportation disadvantaged in a set service area (section 427.011). Transportation disadvantaged means people who, because of disability, income, or age, cannot transport themselves or buy transportation.

Each planning agency recommends a single CTC, and the Commission for the Transportation Disadvantaged must approve it. A purchasing agency may not serve as CTC. The CTC may provide all or part of the trips, but it must subcontract or broker the ones others can run more cost effectively (section 427.015).

Its duties under section 427.0155 include these:

• Sign uniform contracts, on a standard form with performance standards, with every operator.
• Review all operator contracts every year.
• Collect annual operating data for the Commission.
• Set eligibility rules and priorities, with the local board, for trips paid from the Transportation Disadvantaged Trust Fund.
• Take full responsibility for delivering the service.

Rule 41-2.011 adds that managers with day-to-day authority must be physically located in the service area, unless the Commission allows otherwise. Designations the Commission approved in April and June 2026 run five years, from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2031. Coordinators do change. On July 1, 2026, Escambia County handed its CTC role to a newly formed organization, RideITL Cares (see NEMT in Escambia County). The same day, the Central Florida Regional Planning Council took over from a private company as CTC for DeSoto, Hardee, Highlands, and Okeechobee counties (see Highlands County community transportation).

Who does what in Florida’s coordinated system

Role	Who it is	What it does
Commission for the Transportation Disadvantaged	A state commission created by the Legislature in 1989	Approves CTC designations, sets standards in Rule 41-2, and runs the Transportation Disadvantaged Trust Fund, paid for by vehicle registrations and voluntary donations
Planning agency	The metropolitan planning organization, or a designated official planning agency outside one	Recommends the CTC and appoints and staffs the local coordinating board
Local coordinating board	Members appointed by the planning agency, meeting at least quarterly	Approves the service plan, evaluates the CTC, and can recommend approval or rejection of operator contracts
Community transportation coordinator	A county, transit authority, nonprofit, or private company	Books, schedules, and delivers the rides, and contracts with operators
Transportation operator	A public, private for-profit, or private nonprofit organization the CTC engages	Drives the trips the CTC assigns under its contract
Coordination contractor	An agency that gets transportation disadvantaged funds and runs its own rides, such as a day program	Carries its own clients, and sometimes others, under a written contract with the CTC
Purchasing agency	A state or local agency that buys rides for its clients	Must use the coordinated system unless it shows another option is more cost effective

Each county’s rules live in its Transportation Disadvantaged Service Plan (TDSP). The planning agency and the CTC write it together, the local board approves it, and it covers eligibility, trip priorities, operator standards, and rates.

How CTC networks are set up

The Commission sorts CTCs into three network types. A sole source CTC drives every trip itself. A partial brokerage CTC drives some and contracts the rest to operators or coordination contractors. A complete brokerage CTC drives none and contracts out all of them.

Figures from the Commission’s 2025 Annual Operating Report, covering July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025:

Measure	Statewide
Counties by network type	25 sole source, 26 partial brokerage, 16 complete brokerage
Counties by type of CTC	26 private nonprofit, 24 county government, 10 public transit authority, 5 private for-profit, 1 city, 1 other
Total trips, including bus routes	14,412,547
Trips by type of service	5,612,664 fixed route bus, 5,400,848 paratransit, 2,543,766 ADA paratransit, 435,857 rideshare, the rest deviated routes, taxi, school bus, and volunteers
Trips driven by CTCs	7,439,586
Trips driven by transportation operators	4,441,035
Trips driven by coordination contractors	2,531,926
Vehicles and drivers	4,386 vehicles, 6,811 drivers
Cost per paratransit trip	$49.47
Trips paid by the Agency for Health Care Administration (Medicaid)	400,349

The split varies a lot by county. In Broward County, a partial brokerage, contracted operators drove 980,558 of the county’s 2,204,145 trips that year. In a sole source county, the CTC may have no operator contracts at all, so ask before you plan around one. A complete brokerage can also send every trip to a single contractor, as Sumter County does below.

How to become a CTC transportation operator

1. Find your CTC. The Commission’s county list gives each CTC’s office phone and its ride line. Call the office, not the ride line.
2. Read the county’s TDSP. It says how operators are picked, what insurance they carry, and how the CTC bills. Two recent examples:
   • Sumter County (annual update June 1, 2026) has been fully brokered since October 1, 2011, and its June 2026 update says it still runs its trips under a contract with one transit company. Its plan allows a contract with an operator picked by request for proposals, or with all qualified operators found through a request for qualifications, with trips assigned on a rotation or another basis. It can also negotiate on short notice and posts openings in newspaper ads and online bid notices.
   • Leon County (updated June 17, 2026), where StarMetro is the CTC, picks providers by request for proposals under City of Tallahassee rules. Contracts run three years with two optional one-year renewals, and StarMetro guarantees no number of vehicles, hours, or trips.
3. Meet the state minimums. Rule 41-2.006 requires $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident in liability coverage and drug and alcohol testing for safety-sensitive jobs. It also requires two-way communication with the base, working air conditioning and heat, no smoking, and the Transportation Disadvantaged Helpline number (1-800-983-2435) posted in every vehicle. Drivers must announce their name and company at pickup and keep photo ID in view of the rider. First aid, CPR, and background screening rules are set locally in the TDSP.
4. Follow the driver hour limits. Rule 14-90.006 bars driving more than 12 hours, or after 16 hours on duty, in a 24-hour period. Drivers need 8 consecutive hours off before driving again and may not be on duty more than 72 hours in 7 days. It also requires a daily pre-trip inspection, with records kept at least two weeks. See hours of service.
5. Bid when the CTC opens a solicitation. The local board reviews operator contracts, and the CTC must answer its recommendation within 30 days.
6. Bill the CTC, not the rider’s program. The CTC bills purchasing agencies at the TDSP rates. Your rate is the one in your operator contract. Leon’s plan says so directly. Rule 41-2.006 requires the CTC to pay subcontractor bills within 7 working days after it receives payment.

A TDSP rate is what the CTC charges the program, not what an operator earns. Rule 41-2.011 lets a CTC pay for its coordination work through a fee on each trip, through subsidies, or both, with the local board’s approval. Both plans below reset their rates each year with the Commission’s rate calculation model, and they price trips in different units:

County	CTC rate to the paying program	Unit	Plan date
Sumter	$4.72 ambulatory, $8.09 wheelchair	Per mile	Annual update, June 1, 2026
Leon	$24.40 ambulatory, $41.83 wheelchair	Per trip	Effective July 1, 2026

How CTC rides differ from Medicaid plan rides

Both systems carry many of the same people to many of the same clinics, but they are contracted and paid separately.

	Transportation Disadvantaged ride through a CTC	Florida Medicaid ride
Who qualifies	People who meet the transportation disadvantaged definition. Trust fund trips go only to riders whose trip no other program will pay for	Medicaid members going to covered care
Who arranges it	The CTC for the county	The member’s managed care plan, through its ride vendor. Fee-for-service members use Modivcare in Regions A, G, H, and I and MTM in Regions B through F
Who pays your company	The CTC, under your operator contract	The plan’s broker or the state’s vendor, under your network agreement
Trip purposes	Medical, work, school, shopping, and other life-sustaining trips	Covered medical care only
Safety rules	Chapter 427, Rule 41-2, and Rule 14-90	The same. Plan contracts updated July 1, 2026 require transportation providers other than rideshare companies to follow Chapter 427 and Rules 41-2 and 14-90, with the same $200,000 and $300,000 minimums

Florida law still tells the Medicaid agency to buy rides through the coordinated system when it can reach terms with the Commission, but it lets the agency contract other ways, including capitated contracts (section 409.908(18)). Today Medicaid rides run through the plans and the two fee-for-service vendors, and Medicaid paid for only 400,349 of the coordinated system’s trips in fiscal year 2024-25.

That split is useful to you. A Leon County rider can use trust fund trips only if no other program will pay, and the county ranks dialysis first, then other medical trips, then work and school. A Medicaid member’s clinic trip belongs with the plan’s broker, while the same rider’s grocery trip may belong with the CTC. Working both sides keeps your vans fuller. See how to start a NEMT business in Florida for Medicaid enrollment and broker networks, and who pays for NEMT for how the payers fit together. Other states handle this coordination through mobility management or human service transportation brokers.